Freemium community as a strategy

Often when people think about building a business model around a community, deciding whether it is a free or paid community is top of mind.

I’m here to explore the concept of a freemium community, which is a mix of a free and paid community.

What is a freemium community?

A freemium community is where some community, product or service offerings are made freely available. Freemium is typically associated with SaaS products rather than communities, but a similar mindset can apply to communities.

A custom-built SaaS is mostly the norm in today’s world, however custom-built communities are not. I live in hope that they will one day become normalised, however not today! SaaS businesses have the advantage with freemium from the perspective that the user experience and software is given a huge priority, customisation and investment.

It is much harder in the current state of the community industry when we don't have as much control around the things we can build. We rely on a whole range of different technology and platforms to try to piece things together. It is often not ideal (I actually find it really frustrating!), but also, it is what we generally have right now. 😢